Du Pont Heir Admits to Raping 2nd Child, Yet Has Never Gone to Prison

by cuitlahuacrivas

March 20, 2014

One of the heirs of the du Pont chemical company family fortune is trying to avoid jail for a second time for molesting one of his own children.

Nearly a decade ago, Robert H. Richards IV was accused of raping his then-3-year-old daughter. He initially denied the charges and it went to court. During the trial, Richards offered to take a polygraph, which is subsequently failed. After that, he came clean, admitting to the charges and saying that he was “ill.”

The story should have ended there, with Richards going away for a long time, but instead – sitting on a smoking gun, a confession to his crimes – the prosecutors instead let Richards plea out for a much less severe charge of “fourth-degree rape,” which still should have seen Richards going to jail for up to 15 years, but Richards got off with probation.

The justice system isn’t usually so kind to admitted child molesters, but it may have had something to do with who Richards is. According to the USA Today, Richards family name was a deciding factor in the case:

Richards is a scion of two prominent Delaware families — the du Pont family who built the chemical empire and the Richards family who co-founded the prestigious corporate law firm Richards Layton & Finger. Du Pont family patriarch Irenee du Pont is his great grandfather. His father, Robert H. Richards III, was a partner in the law firm until his 2008 retirement.